Finding a web designer is easy. Finding a good web designer that will deliver results is more difficult. Even tougher is contracting a great agency. The best are in demand and selective in who they choose to work with. Since reputation is everything in our industry, the best will only consider projects that have a high likelihood of success.
While success can be defined in different ways, at DesignHammer we consider pre-launch success and post-launch success. While they are based on different criteria, both are very important to us.
From signing to deployment there are several factors that contribute to success for us. The most critical is delivering the project per the schedule and budget we provided in the project plan. Also of great importance is providing a positive experience to our client through clear communication, transparency, and education.
Post deployment, success is measured against criteria determined through collaboration with our client during discovery and planning. Success in this case is situational. Universal, however, is that success criteria must be determined from the start with the website planned and built around the functionality most likely to contribute to success.
Most site owners fixate on pageviews. Unless you are selling ad impressions, how do pageviews contribute to your bottom line? Streamlining your site and improving content organization so visitors don’t need to hunt down what they are looking for will likely decrease your page views, and even increase your bounce rate (if they find what they are looking for on their entry page), but will be successful in increasing user satisfaction.
While some projects, such as eCommerce, may seem obvious, they can often be nuanced. Is eCommerce all about sales totals? What if the business has high return or exchange rates that are killing the bottom line? What about customer service demands for pre and post sales support that are eating into profits? Could these areas be addressed (increasing profits) by having better descriptions or product comparisons? What about FAQs or instructional videos?
We feel a website is best thought of as a tool to solve business problems. As we collaborate with our clients to help them articulate their business problems, we can use our experience to help them define website success.
If you don’t inform your agency on how you will measure success of the project, they can’t focus on achieving it. If you don’t know how to measure your company's success, you aren’t ready for a new or even redesigned website. But don’t worry, let us know and we would be happy to consult with you to figure out an appropriate success metric.
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